Hex the Vote (Mad Uncle Morgan Talks About American Politics)

In this article collection from the monthly Hearthstone Community Church (the Denver, Colorado Open Full Moon ritual people) newsletter, Morgan Drake Eckstein (Mad Uncle Morgan) ponders the horrors of the American political system, rape culture, the business of occult writing, and the dumbing down of the occult and esoteric communities by the onslaught of internet memes on Facebook and Twitter. More

In this article collection from the monthly Hearthstone Community Church (the Denver, Colorado Open Full Moon ritual people) newsletter, Morgan Drake Eckstein (Mad Uncle Morgan) ponders the horrors of the American political system, especially the terrors of the 2016 Presidential election.

Having predicted in 2011 that America would someday elect Donald Trump, Morgan spent almost the entire year asking people, “Are you really sure that you want to elect him?”

When he wasn’t howling at the moon while thinking about politics, Morgan explored acting as a priest of Bast, the horrors of sexual predators, gun violence, whether or not occult writers are allowed to make a profit, and the meme-ation of the occult community.

Excerpt one: As my regular readers know, I spend far too much time on social media, watching train wrecks and avoiding working on my novel. And lately, what I have seen makes me think that the next generation of witches will not be able to hex their way out of a wet paper bag.

(I should note that I am talking about a segment of the next generation, not the entire generation. But having to say, “those damn numpties who seem to suck all the oxygen out of the room every time they take part in a discussion while declaring that they are the most enlightened and knowledgeable magicians of all time, and who think that everyone who disagrees with them is a government sponsored troll hell-bent on keeping them ignorant and enslaved to big corporations” would make this little essay impossible to read. Just assume that I am not talking about you; for my readers are some of the most intelligent witches on the planet today. And now into the breech, we go.)

Let’s be honest: Every generation looks at the following generation, and thinks that it is getting dumber and softer because of some trend or technology. My generation had first television, then video games making us dumber, and our preferred music was pure brain rot—or at least, that is what my mother thought. I suspect that the idea is as old as mankind; while we do not have records of a cave man complaining that the local cave art was rotting his children’s brains, we do have records of an Ancient Greek bemoaning that his civilization was getter softer with each passing generation.

But I swear on a stack of cats that social media, in particular Facebook groups, is turning the next generation into a herd of drooling goobers. And that includes magicians and witches.

Excerpt two: After a long year, it is finally time to put 2016 in the rearview mirror. Unfortunately, the events of 2016 are now sitting drunk in the backseat, looking for a taco truck, and loudly lecturing you on the fact that poor people are the real reason that poor people are poor. It won’t be so bad if you had fun at the party where 2016 latched onto you like gropey racist uncle; but let’s be honest, no party is ever good when the DJ decides to leave early and has ingeniously wired the sound system to talk show radio in a way that no one can figure out how to turn it off.

I was so hoping that after the longest election in human history that I could get back to the really important things in life: writing bad Necronomicon satire and posting cat pictures. But no, 2016 has decided that my couch is a good place to sleep off its hangover—soon, my floor will be knee deep with pornography and empty pizza boxes. It would be ok if 2016 planned on paying some of the rent; but 2016 is going on and on about this really cute billionaire it has met, who merely wanted a few votes and tax breaks, and you just know that 2016 is going to stiff you for all the bills until long after the cute billionaire had broken their heart.

(Is that description too harsh? Too bad—the thousand random typewriting monkeys are still trying to find someone to read their iteration of Hamlet, so you are stuck with me, the happy little cynic.)

As a kid, Morgan Drake Eckstein wanted to be a humorous newspaper columnist just like Emma Bombeck. As a teenager, he didn’t know what he wanted to be—but his classmates were fairly sure that it would involve lots of words and screaming at people from across a room. In his twenties, he wanted to be a science fiction writer like Robert Heinlein or Douglas Adams. In his thirties, he wanted to be a fantasy writer like Robert Asprin or Terry Pratchett. In his forties, he still wanted to do dodgy things like this, but wisely did not tell this to the administration of the university he was attending…but they might have figured it out anyways, thanks to his humorous astrology column for the student newspaper. Now, in his fifties, he believes that he would really like to be a stand-up comedian like Eddie Izzard or Ross Noble. Sadly, none of these ambitions will ever be fulfilled, for Morgan is Morgan.

A Third Degree Wiccan and Adept Major (6=5) in Golden Dawn, Morgan Drake Eckstein has been involved in Wicca and paganism his entire life. He is a board member of Hearthstone Community Church (Denver, Colorado—the Open Full Moon People), as well as a former elected officer of Bast Temple (Evolving Order of Eclectic Ways/[formerly] Golden Dawn in the Outer/Ba Iset Order of the Rosy Cross [BIORC] in the Inner). Besides his monthly newsletter column, Morgan writes and blogs about the esoteric traditions on his Gleamings from the Dawn blog. He holds two bachelor degrees from the University of Colorado at Denver (literary studies and history). He is happily married to a ceramic artist. He is owned by several cats who wish that he would make more money as a writer and artist, so that they could eat fresh shrimp every night.